The new project on the new (parts-caster) project!

[Deleted]

Hello!

just waiting till February ends so that i have all my March budget available (since i am done with February budget!) so in the meantime i am limited to do some planning work only!

Well, the 2do tasks on the new guitar involve :

A. Fixing

1) fixing a broken screw hole on the dimarzio hs-3 (which i bought used). This problem does not allow the pup to be lifted at greater height.
2) install the new metal bronze nut that i have. (current nut looks ugly)

B. Upgrading

1) Install Irongear hammerhead HB at bridge (i'll leave the original in middle and hs-3 in neck)
2) Install new HSS pickguard
3) Shield the new pickguard with copper tape (w. conductive glue) (save the SSS aluminium shield for the Aria)
4) Enhance continuity with the cavities using the copper tape on top of the aluminium tape
5) Install switched push-pull audio (log) 500Kohm pot to the vol position. Push-Pull will be used to switch the hammerhead between in series and parallel wiring.
6) upgrade the other two tone pots to 500kohm Linear

C. Use the spare items to improve the old Aria.

- Install the old aluminium SSSS pickguard shield on the other stat-type guitar - the Aria
- Shield Aria cavities with copper paint (since i have some 30ml which i never used)

---------------------------------------------------------------

What do you guys think?
Is there any gotchas in the above scenario i should try to avoid?
Am i being foolish about smth?

[newey]

4) Enhance continuity with the cavities using the copper tape on top of the aluminium tape

I question only #4. Have you ascertained that, in fact, there is no continuity with what you have now?

Putting an extra layer of tape on top can run into problems of adhesion. There also may be some degree of galvanic interaction between the 2 metals over time.

If the existing aluminum tape isn't adequately continuous, I'd remove it and start over with the copper rather than lay the copper on top. If your meter shows continuity with what you have, then I'd leave well enough alone.

All that nice shiny copper won't mean a thing if it peels off inside the cavity in a year or so.

[cynical1]

I'm with newey on this one. I'd yank out all the aluminum and go with just the copper tape. Quick question, is the adhesive on the copper tape conductive?

HTC1

[Deleted]

thanx guys!!!
Cynical, yes the copper tape will have conductive adhesive.

Thing is, as is the aluminium tape (without conductive adhesive) seems to provide continuity along various points in cavity, but it varies from 1-10 ohms to 150-200 ohms. If i press with the VOM pin , woodpecker style, the areas where two aluminium sheets overlap, i can gain extra continuity (max 8 ohms from anywhere to anywhere), but this seems to be temporary only.
And i worry that it might destroy continuity over time.

Anyways, lets say i choose to get rid of the old aluminium tape, with the aluminium i have a problem:
The glue is so strong, that i think that i will have real trouble removing it.

What should i do? I saw that Aceton (whats the name in English?) (AKA Acytelenio) does a good job on this adhesive
but i am afraid i am gonna screw the guitar.
How does Acytelenio interact with wood?

So, i thought that an extra good layer of copper on top of the aluminium joints would be great!

Can you please elaborate on the dangers of having both alumunium and copper?

thanx!

edit: as a last resort i might just enhance the current aluminium shield with aluminium.

HOWEVER : should i do the new pickguard with copper tape or aluminium as well?

If someone can have aluminium pickguard and copper cavities, then how is there not a galvanization problem? or is even that possible?

[Yew]

If i recall, resistance doesnt matter, as long as there is conductivity


Those irongear pups are nice, the Blues engine in my Epiphone runs quite well against the 57 classic plus in my high end gibson sg..

Maybe its just because it has the sound i want, where the 57's are too creamy for me..


for the pikcup screw hole.. if it is actually on the mounting hole for the pikcup, soldering a little nut on should fix it...

[sumgai]

yew,

No, the resistance will definitely matter. If it's up over 10Ω or more, then there exists a high probability of a ground loop. Not a real deal killer, but then again, why introduce potential problems when you can so easily avoid them, eh?


~!~!~!~!~!~

pyrros,

I'm a fan of copper, for the above reasons. Use a router to remove any glue reside, just as if you were carving out some wood. ;D

HTH



sumgai

[cynical1]

Acetone will remove most things...probably why they use it in nail polish remover...and lacquer thinner.

It will also take all the lacquer off your guitar. If the guitar is poly or catalyst it won't matter. Test a small spot on the body before bringing out the bucket of acetone.

HTC1

[sumgai]

^^^^ Ah, better living through chemistry! ;D

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2011 12:21:13 GMT -5 Yew said:

for the pikcup screw hole.. if it is actually on the mounting hole for the pikcup, soldering a little nut on should fix it...

Thanx,
thing is i dont wanna make the dimarzio looking "strange" in case i wanna sell it!
I think i'll use some normal baking soda powder and glue it in the hole with super glue.
It is the same technique that some ppl use to fix a worn nut slot.

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2011 12:46:35 GMT -5 sumgai said:

pyrros,

I'm a fan of copper, for the above reasons. Use a router to remove any glue reside, just as if you were carving out some wood. ;D

HTH

sumgai

i measured again this morning and i get consistently under 1 ohm (some times it peaked to 2-3 ohms) anywhere i place the pins on the whole shielded chassis ( pickguard shield/bridge/output jack - note: i have removed the star grounding thing and the anti-shock capacitor. I dont really think they are worth the trouble and the space occupied in the tiny control cavity area).
But this measurement was with the pickguard in place. I have some small suspicion that the pickguard aluminium shield comes in light contact with the bridge. So, i gotta measure again what's going on in the body pup/control cavities with the pickguard removed, and/or seriously consider eliminating this ground loop between the pickguard aluminium shield and the bridge if it really exists. I tried to place some piece of plastic-nylon foil under the bridge and between the bridge and the aluminum shield and i didnt notice any difference.
But, what i should really do is de-solder the ground wire from the tremolo and see the real situation. If i still get conductivity between anywhere and the bridge then it is definitely a ground loop caused by the aluminium pickguard shield-bridge light contact. If not then by measuring continuity between the aluminium - pickguard shield and the de-soldered wire in the tremolo cavity, i'll have the real image.

Anyways, i suspect that the cheap aluminum tape (2.5 euros) has done great work!!
lets see!

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2011 19:32:54 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

Acetone will remove most things...probably why they use it in nail polish remover...and lacquer thinner.

It will also take all the lacquer off your guitar. If the guitar is poly or catalyst it won't matter. Test a small spot on the body before bringing out the bucket of acetone.

HTC1

thanx,
without knowing that, i already tried to remove some super glue that was accidentally dropped on the body, and i managed with aceton to remove most of it, but not completely, although if i insisted some 3-5 minutes more i would have been completely removed. Anyway, the color remained just fine, so i guess aceton would be safe, but i think i'll keep the aluminium foil. It does a good job,it seems...

[Deleted]

update :
some ppl here in Greece have proposed using Graphite conductive spray, or conductive pencil, or just some rear view mirror de-frost repair kit sold in automotive shops. Also, in automotive paint shops i have seen conductive paints as well.
The graphite spray is advertized as working best on plastic, i dont know the case about wood.

[sumgai]

pyrros,

If the aluminum is working to your satisfaction, then yes, leave it alone! I say I'm a fan of copper because it not only has a better conductivity rating, but it's also capable of being soldered.... you can't solder anything to aluminum (unless you have a certain kind of welding rig, and are willing to work underwater. ) Call me anal about it, but I don't like trusting a screw-and-washer to connect a wire to the aluminum shielding material, I prefer solder, that's all.


As to conductive paints, I suppose that the art of making such is improving all the time. But the last time we visited this topic, paints were found by most people to be only marginally acceptable. Most folks took the position that it was worth a try, but they went back and re-did the job with a layer of foil. Paints are fast and easy to apply, but unless you've got a really high-quality product, then the amount of shielding (metallic particles suspended within the paint base) is still not enough to block out most of the objectionable noise (hum, etc.).

For what it's worth, graphite is not a conductor, but in fact it leans more toward being an insulator. It's not very good at either job, but it's real cheap, so it gets used for lots of things where perfection is not demanded. If you (or any other Nutz in your locale) have access to several cheap guitar bodies, you might try some of the various shielding paints, and see what happens. Like I said, the quality is probably improving, but it's been at least a couple of years since I last investigated the topic. I'm sure others here would also be interested in your results, should you try this shielding method.




sumgai

[Yew]

Graphite is a silly material..

[Deleted]

ooops i guess you guys are right about graphite, just found this:
www.emsdiasum.com/microscopy/products/sem/conductive.aspx

It's electrical resistance is 1.2 kohm/sq"

kohm?? That's huge resistance !!

Anyways, GOOD NEWS!! Just run the final resistance test : less 0.4 Ohm from anywhere to anywhere!!!
Cheap aluminum tape with non-conductive adhesive does the trick.

Anyways, guys just a fast question :

while the tremolo wire was in the air, i tried to play the guitar to see if i can hear an major difference due to deliberate faulty grounding, and to my surprise i got the same sound/buzz/hum as always. In certain positions/orientation the guitar didn't hum at all (at max gain, needless to say) and in other positions it hummed as usual. What's the deal?

[Deleted]

Guys, just bringing this up, to refresh my question about the tremolo grounding wire.
When the wire was not connected, i got the exact same behavior regarding hum and buzz.
Does this mean that the solid aluminum pickguard shield and the aluminum tape cavities shield provide adequate grounding by themselves regardless of the tremolo being connected or not? I am puzzled with this!

[sumgai]

pyrros,

Feb 17, 2011 10:15:02 GMT -5 @pyrros said:

Does this mean that the solid aluminum pickguard shield and the aluminum tape cavities shield provide adequate grounding by themselves regardless of the tremolo being connected or not?

No, not necessarily.

You don't say it, so I'm left to assume one of two things. Either your guitar still hums/buzzes a tiny bit, and touching the strings makes no difference. In that case, the wire and/or the solder joints on either end could be "less than optimal".

Or else you've achieved 100% total hum reduction, right down to ZERO hum. If that's the case, then we'll +1 ya, 'cause that's not exactly the easiest thing to do, for most folks.

HTH



sumgai

[Deleted]

Sumgai, thanx, What i experience is the following:
- i get good conductivity between the chassis and the tremolo (under 0.5 ohm) and i have measured this many many times.
- i dont see *any* difference when touching the strings
- in certain orientations/directions (mostly the guitar being straight vertical to the ground, and somewhat away from the amp) i get almost zero hum. I have verified this playing without amp, using only Boss me-25 effects directly and listening through headphones. But even with no amp, and using only Boss me-25, in certain positions i do get hum.

[sumgai]

pyrros,

Well, it sounds to me like you've got down as far as you can, without doing something either silly or very expensive.

Truth to tell, even my rig can pickup hum, if the moon is full, the stars are lined up just right, and the witch doctor fails to dance in the correct direction around the campfire. Which translates loosely to: within about 30cm of the amp head. Outside of that range, I'm more quiet than a mouse.

And ya know, we've talked around the issue, but I might as well mention it now...... there is one way to avoid hum altogether, and that's with a wireless system. With mine, I can lay the guitar on top of the amp and walk away, and it still wont' make a peep. (At normal listening levels. If I turn it up, the feedback will still come on strong, which doesn't make the bar customers any more friendly.....)


HTH


sumgai

[Deleted]

Feb 17, 2011 23:38:39 GMT -5 sumgai said:

pyrros,
Truth to tell, even my rig can pickup hum, if the moon is full, the stars are lined up just right, and the witch doctor fails to dance in the correct direction around the campfire. Which translates loosely to: within about 30cm of the amp head. Outside of that range, I'm more quiet than a mouse.

It seems you have zero hum indeed! Do you have single coils or hum canceling pups?
In my case, it is only certain positions/directions/orientations that i dont get any hum at all, when using the cheap single coil bridge pup. When i use position 2 (bridge-middle humbucking parellel) or position 5 (neck : dimarzio stacked humbucker hs-3) then i get no hum again.
But the noise pattern that exists (in a much larger scale) with the bridge single coil, when i turn the guitar around, the same exists in the case of the humcanceling positions 2 and 5, just at a much smaller scale.

I noticed another thing. With a certain long cable (other than the one used to do the above tests) i managed to have buzz (not hum) in position 2 (bridge-middle humbucking parellel). In these rare occasions that i managed to have buzz in this switch position , touching the strings made the buzz worse And letting off the tremolo-strings made the buzz less. Maybe my pots are a piece of garbage, since i rely on them transferring ground from the pups/jack to the chasis and vice versa.

Feb 17, 2011 23:38:39 GMT -5 sumgai said:

pyrros,
And ya know, we've talked around the issue, but I might as well mention it now...... there is one way to avoid hum altogether, and that's with a wireless system. With mine, I can lay the guitar on top of the amp and walk away, and it still wont' make a peep. (At normal listening levels. If I turn it up, the feedback will still come on strong, which doesn't make the bar customers any more friendly.....)i

Even without the amp, and the fridge turned off i still get the thing ....

Anyways, nice job you have!! bar owner ! You play there i guess as well. Nice job.

[Deleted]

So, to sum up, what does it mean when, by moving around and rotating the guitar, one gets from some serious hum to nearly no hum at all, depending on the instrument's position, orientation?

Is that considered good shielding ? bad? or just ugly

[Deleted]

Just test again the new build VS the old unshielded Aria (with the only single coil it has) and in the spots where with the new strat i get zero hum, with the Aria i get considerable hum, and in the spots that with Aria the hum goes nuts!, with the strat it is about half...

Next steps , some new 2do items just for tonight:

1) replace vol pot with new 500kohm pot
2) fix dimarzio hs-3 screw hole
3) shield jack wire
4) test again all electrics

[sumgai]

pyrros,

I think you took it that I own a bar, and that I'm concerned about 'my' customers - that ain't true! As a player (in a band), I'm always watching out for what the customers want, whenever I play in a bar, any bar. I know that if the customers don't like what they hear, they won't be back, or just as bad, they'll tell the bar owner they aren't happy, and that's the end of our gig.... at least at that bar.

Bars come and go, but at any moment in time, there are only so many of them that will hire bands, so.... if I ignore the customers at a bar, and I lose the job, then that's one less bar I can depend on for earning some extra money. Since there aren't enough bars around that I can afford to lose any of them, then that's a bad thing right there. But worse, it should be obvious, is that some of those same customers go to other bars too, and if they spread the word, I and my band are in deep kim-chee. And all of that is so easy to avoid - simply play what the customers want to hear, and don't make them uncomfortable with ear-piercing howling noises. Simple, yes? At least in my part of the country, it's surprising how many bands don't get it.



I must beg your pardon, I've misplaced my manners.... I completely forgot that you've been here only a short while, and that you've not yet seen my guitar. In effect, it's a 2005 AmStratDlx, which came with SCn pups. They're a stacked humbucker, but they seem to have about 96% of that "pure Strat" tone, at least to my ears.

It was pretty good out of the box, but I used to play at a joint where the stage was tucked into a corner between two outside walls. And wouldn't you know it, both walls had windows right over the stage area, and you just know that the bar owner had to have neon signs in those windows, right? Well, at about 1.3m from my axe to the signs, that was too much, and humbuckers though they were, they still hummed.

Enter the QTB article - Ta DA!!

After shielding it, all hum dropped to virtually nothing. Not 100% of the physical reality, but as they say here in America, it's close enough for government work! ;D

I've got some pictures posted around here somewheres.... (can't seem to find 'em just now, sorry. )


As for the bad cable (or nearly bad cable) that can make position 2 worse, that's not unheard of. Most likely that cable is just borderline good, or good enough, anyway. It's all a matter of tolerances, I'm sure.

But that bit about making the hum worse when you touch the strings.... that's wierd! I dunno what to say about that one. Anyone else here have an idea?




sumgai

[Deleted]

I scrapped the aluminium completely. Next time i will try what our friend Newey proposed : copper tape.
Anyways i guess if a good aluminium tape with conductive glue was around that would be also good.
Sometime i gotta use this spare copper paint that i have, anyway.

[ashcatlt]

If the string ground is, in fact, firmly connected to the sleeve of the jack then I can't think of any reason it would hum more when touching the strings. This is usually a symptom of o jack wired backwards. I can tell you that if the jack sleeve comes loose it will start to buzz because you've now got everything (including the shield and strings) hanging from the hot jack tip.

Directional noise pickup is pretty normal. Works the same way as moving around the rabbit ears on an old TV.

[Deleted]

ashcatlt thanx, i have done many re-wirings since this strings-buzz problem, so i dont think it is valid any more.

[Deleted]

now i got smth else....

the tone does not work. on neither of the tone pots... I think the cheap switch and the two cheap tone pots gave up... thankfully the volume pot has been upgraded to a large one type A (log) 500khm, and at least this works.

[Deleted]

^^^^
solved : on of the capacitor's pins was broken.